Cooking Ham Instructions

These simple cooking ham instructions are the foolproof way for baking ham this Christmas. Baking ham always seeming daunting, however, this is a surprisingly easy meal to produce with minimal preparation. The addition of orange rind and cinnamon to the boiling water rings the changes and compliments the ham.

Ham glaze recipes abound, but the one featured below is simple and delicious. The mixture of mustard and cayenne is a spicy foil for the sugar.

Generally, the cooking time for a ham is 25 minutes per pound (450g). However, I find that if the ham has been deboned, you can reduce the cooking time by 5 minutes per pound.

Ingredients:

Ham Glaze Recipe

Method:

1. Place the ham in a pot and just cover with cold water. Add the celery stick, carrots, orange rind and cinnamon stick. Place a lid on the pot.
2. Bring the water to the boil and simmer gently for 20 - 25 minutes per pound (450g).
3. When the ham is cooked, place it on a board and discard the contents of the pot. Cut off the skin and some of the fat, so that you have a thinnish layer of fat on the gammon - I am not mad about lots of fat so I cut it so that it is about ½ inch (1 cm) thick, but you can leave more fat if you wish.
4. Score the fat in a criss-cross pattern. Stud the fat with the cloves.
5. Heat the oven to 350° F / 180° C.
6. Melt the sugar gently in a pot. Be careful that it doesn't burn. Carefully add the tablespoon of water, the mustard and cayenne pepper.
7. Smear this ham glaze all over the top of the gammon.
8. Bake the gammon for about 20 minutes, basting the ham with the glaze every five minutes.
9. Serve in fine slivers.